Ritewing Mini Drak Build and Info

[Mochaboy]

Throwing my build log into the pile:



Note on the failed launches - the maiden pilots were all existing Mini Drak pilots that inspected the setup before the maiden attempts (I had a range of setups over 6 builds). The problem we ran into was a problem with how iNav interprets radio trims which took a lot of work to figure out. Once we worked out that wrinkle - the bird flew exactly the way she meant to.

Post maiden report coming soon along with my trimmed configurations and notes on how to set up iNav for RTH with this bird.

[Hoss]

Is this the bird they were talking about on the failsafe podcast? One of the guys started talking about the mini drak and how someone couldn't get it to launch and a bunch of experienced pilots were trying to help him. The one thing I didn't like about what they were saying is that the one guy, Ruben, said "you need a flight controller to fly it", basically saying it requires too much. That's bullshit... But I don't think anyone here believes a flight controller is necessary... Just a convenience / assistant.

Anyway, I really like that paint job. I've been holding off on starting my next big drak build because I can't quite decide on the colors yet. I really like my mini drak colors (orange and blue) but I feel like on the big drak it might make it look too much like a big toy (which I guess it kinda is . I really like this though... Is that the Plasti dip grey or did you use another method? Thanks.

[Mochaboy]

Is this the bird they were talking about on the failsafe podcast? One of the guys started talking about the mini drak and how someone couldn't get it to launch and a bunch of experienced pilots were trying to help him. The one thing I didn't like about what they were saying is that the one guy, Ruben, said "you need a flight controller to fly it", basically saying it requires too much. That's bullshit... But I don't think anyone here believes a flight controller is necessary... Just a convenience / assistant.

Anyway, I really like that paint job. I've been holding off on starting my next big drak build because I can't quite decide on the colors yet. I really like my mini drak colors (orange and blue) but I feel like on the big drak it might make it look too much like a big toy (which I guess it kinda is . I really like this though... Is that the Plasti dip grey or did you use another method? Thanks.

This is the exact plane they were talking about...and point in fact, it was the flight controller that was causing us all of those headaches. 6 Mini Drak pilots look over the bird and signed off on it - it wasn't the pilot or the airframe's fault in any of the crashes - it was 100% a setup problem (ironically in pass through mode). Once we got those issues worked out - she lifted off perfectly with no torque roll. The FC is only there for RTH which I'm about 95% done with configuring, just working on documenting that part as a companion video to this build.

I used plastidip smoke and and plastidip blaze orange. For the ailerons, I coated them with grey primer to approximate the foam color, then shot everything with orange, masked, then completed with the smoke. It took between 10 and 15 applications to get a solid-ish layer. I went in afterwards and finally laminated the bird and found that 5mil laminate REALLY likes to stick to plastidip - so it's a win win all around.

[ritewing]

Wow I didn't realize that there was talk like this about this on the podcast. We have a ton of people that fly this aircraft without a flight controller and won't even put one in there due to its awesome self-stabilizing characteristics. Just the design alone makes it super stable in comparison to a lot of the current swept Chevron type. I will admit watching it being thrown into the ground multiple times in the video was a little disheartening. I feed my family from these great products. I would never mold it if it was not amazing!

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[Mochaboy]

Wow I didn't realize that there was talk like this about this on the podcast. We have a ton of people that fly this aircraft without a flight controller and won't even put one in there due to its awesome self-stabilizing characteristics. Just the design alone makes it super stable in comparison to a lot of the current swept Chevron type. I will admit watching it being thrown into the ground multiple times in the video was a little disheartening. I feed my family from these great products. I would never mold it if it was not amazing!

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

Yeah - it wasn't the plane and it absolutely wasn't the pilots, and the podcast team had no context as to what was going on, all they saw was a plane launch and crash...Ultimately it was the builder's unfamiliarity with iNav that caused all that.

This is the danger with trying new tech with nothing more than few forum posts to guide you...I purposely chose iNav as a challenge to see if I could get RTH working because not everyone can afford a vector, but throwing $40 at a flight controller and a gps is good way to take some of the sting out of the possibility of losing such a nice plane as this.

It's ironic when you think about it...everyone wants a nice plane, but no one wants to lose it once it's built, so on top of the kit costs, now you're looking at an additional $200 for an arkbird or a vector. I'm convinced I can get the reassurance of having RTH capabilities built into this plane for a quarter of that cost which would inevitably put this in the hands of more pilots.

[ritewing]

Yeah I get all that buddy but at the end of the day on a live podcast the MD was talked about in the wrong light! Even with six so-called MD experts helping. That's why you can see Hoss was a little upset because he knows this aircraft very well as do I. He knows the efforts that went into this from my small company to bring this awesome product to everybody. I'm sorry you had the issues. For me hearing about the MD being talked about like this on the podcast kind of did not make my day!

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[Mochaboy]

I went in and listened to that section of the podcast and I can certainly see how that would be upsetting, especially when they got their facts wrong. I know it's small solace, but we figured out the exact cause of those failed launches and I go into it in detail in the maiden recap. As a bonus, anyone that wants to replicate this build with RTH and OSD for $40 will have a pathway to do so.

[ritewing]

No problem. I myself have not even listen to it. It's just too bad that it went out on Airwaves.

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[Implicit]

Yeah - it wasn't the plane and it absolutely wasn't the pilots, and the podcast team had no context as to what was going on, all they saw was a plane launch and crash...Ultimately it was the builder's unfamiliarity with iNav that caused all that.

This is the danger with trying new tech with nothing more than few forum posts to guide you...I purposely chose iNav as a challenge to see if I could get RTH working because not everyone can afford a vector, but throwing $40 at a flight controller and a gps is good way to take some of the sting out of the possibility of losing such a nice plane as this.

It's ironic when you think about it...everyone wants a nice plane, but no one wants to lose it once it's built, so on top of the kit costs, now you're looking at an additional $200 for an arkbird or a vector. I'm convinced I can get the reassurance of having RTH capabilities built into this plane for a quarter of that cost which would inevitably put this in the hands of more pilots.

You can get an APM for what, $25? Mini-Pixhawks for $50-60. Ardupilot is extremely capable, although it can be a bit daunting to set up.

[Mochaboy]

You can get an APM for what, $25? Mini-Pixhawks for $50-60. Ardupilot is extremely capable, although it can be a bit daunting to set up.

I've set them up - and they're nothing I'd actively encourage anyone to replicate (new or seasoned). The equipment loadout for setup and operation is absurd. Patrik Emillson's baseflight firmware was the closest thing to a no frills RTH+OSD solution for low cost, but it wasn't until the AIO boards came on to the scene that the promise of an integrated RTH/OSD solution was suddenly a reality.

The AIO board took me 20 minutes to set up once I worked out all the settings. And now that MWOSD is integrated into the betaflight/inav configurators, it's one less exhaustive set up step to have to worry about for a new build. But yeah, Omnibus F3 AIO - $22, RTFQ M8N micro gps is only $13...I have everything working on the bench finally, I just need to head out and test it.